Sluggish economy blamed for lowered Blu-ray sales expectations

The Digital Entertainment Group, a consortium of movie studios and electronics manufacturers, presented their "best-case scenario" for winter sales this year. They predict that by year's end, there will be 10.5 million households equipped to play Blu-ray discs in America, with a majority (8 million) being PS3 systems. While the figure may sound impressive, that estimate is much lower than the 14.4 million households predicted earlier in the year.

The sluggish global economy is being blamed for the lowered expectations for Blu-ray. With recessions hitting most economies in the world, consumers may be reluctant to purchase a high-definition entertainment system. "The only dark cloud is the economy," David Bishop, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, told a panel. However, he added the consumer products side of Sony Corp. is "showing no slowdown in the adoption of the PlayStation 3."

To help spur sales, Blu-ray players have been going on sale, and players can be found for less than $200. Sony is also confident it will be able to sell 4-5 million PS3s from now until March. "We remain pretty confident that we'll meet our targets for the fiscal year," said Julie Han, spokeswoman for Sony Computer Entertainment America.